› added 6 years ago

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TIL that the Commissariat Department, which was responsible for supplying the British army during the Crimean War, sent them a shipment of boots, with all the left boots on one ship and all the right boots on another. One of the ships sank.

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WkvmY TIL that there was a conspiracy theory that the Vatican supported the Confederacy and that Pope Pius IX orchestrated the death of Abraham Lincoln.
AD8dB TIL that when the 1907 Monongah mine disaster killed at least 367 coal miners in Marion County, West Virginia, the coal company tried to blame it on child workers playing pranks with explosives and igniting the massive explosion.
y1bX TIL twin baby boys were separated and adopted out. When reunited years later they had both been named James, had married a woman named Linda, divorced and married Betty, both had a son named James Allen, among other similarities
MaYV TIL flour tortillas were invented by a Jewish sect living in Mexico (then a colony of New Spain) who considered corn to be non-kosher.
BgxNk TIL That old methods of cataract surgery involved somebody sucking it out with a hollow needle.